


Sympathy for the Devil

by Anonymous



Category: Lucifer (TV), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Club Owner Ben Solo, Demon Poe, Detective Finn, Detective Rey, F/M, Highly insightful therapist Rose, Highly self-righteous angel Hux, M/M, Minor Character Death, Partners to Lovers, and he also happens to be the devil btw, and they deserve earthly happiness at the very damn least ok ×, csi-style lab tech BB8, i just think both ben solo and lucifer morningstar got a raw deal ok, reylo meets deckerstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29930886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: LAPD Detective Rey Niima thought tonight's homicide would be just like any other: a victim, a suspect, evidence, and it was her job to put them all together. But meeting Ben Solo, a smoldering nightclub owner who just can't seem to stop himself from interfering her investigation, turns the case--and her world--into an investigation more intriguing than any other.Credit to JadeBelle (formerly on tumblr) for the Ben manip in the moodboard.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26
Collections: Reylo Creatives: Anniversary Exchange 2021





	1. pleased to meet you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CelticPixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticPixie/gifts).



> This gift is for CelticPixie. CP, I know you love Lucifer--so what better spin on this than to write a Lucifer AU in which Finn is Rey's supportive LAPD colleague, and their maddening nightclub counterparts are Poe and Ben?
> 
> Thanks for the prompt and I hope you enjoy!! :)
> 
> **CW/TW in chapter 1 for gun violence/death.**

It was a night like any other in Los Angeles—the city was chaotically, violently alive. Drivers snarled with impatience as they fought their way through traffic on the 101. The skies sang with the noise of horns and sirens, even as smog and smoke choked out the stars. 

Downtown, the cacophony was no less intense, though the higher one was in a skyscraper, the more muted its effect. At Sky, LA’s hottest rooftop club, the bodies of partygoers moved in a dazed rhythm, oblivious to the city’s oppressive vibe.

From his place at the top of the club’s staircase, Benjamin Solo surveyed his place and its patrons. His dark eyes were predatory as they swept over the dancers, the drinkers, the partiers, the escapists. Though the air in the club was still and hot, Ben’s thick black hair seemed to move in a nonexistent breeze, as though angels’ wings fluttered nearby. His full lips smirked beneath a patrician nose, one of the reminders of a family legacy he’d done his damnedest to forget.

Though few clubbers at Sky were brave enough to approach him—in all his dark glory—a reckless drunk or an enamored woman sauntered his way as the night wore on. Ben brushed them off as he always did, with a subtle carelessness that was nonetheless effective in its intimidation. Even in his human form, he was a large man—a physical perk Ben enjoyed.

No, tonight was no different from any other, save for one thing.

The Detective.

* * *

Rey’s head pounded in time with the music, though the beat was less pleasant in her skull than it was from the subwoofers embedded in the club’s walls. She rolled her hazel eyes at her friends’ antics, sipped her drink, and tried to keep the glances at her watch to a minimum. She knew everyone was here to have fun, but Rey rarely felt she was off-duty. Even as casually as she was attired tonight, in her ripped jeans and leather jacket, Rey felt she might as well have been wearing her badge on her forehead for how much her attitude screamed _cop._

While the rest of the precinct seemed to be a drunken mess around her, thanks to their friend BB’s thirtieth birthday bash, Rey grinned at the group’s antics even as she maintained just a touch of separation from them all.

Officer Pava swayed her way. “Rey! Dance with me!” The blast of noise in her ear was shrill enough to compete with the music assaulting her from all directions, and Rey laughed at her friend’s enthusiasm.

“Jess, I’m good here. You look great by yourself!”

Jess whined. “C’mon, Rey! Live a little.” The inebriated officer laughed. “I mean, I know that’s kind of the opposite of the whole _homicide detective_ thing...but c’mon!” 

Rey’s grin was tighter now; she was well-accustomed to people not understanding her work, or being awkward in their references to it, especially when it came to new folks on the force.

“Funny, Jess,” Rey said dryly, sipping her Diet Coke. “I do like to have fun. But I’m happier here for now.” With a gentle smile, Rey waited patiently until Jess seemed to understand she wasn’t going to get anywhere. The young woman pouted even as she danced over to another hapless victim.

“We’re too old for this shit,” her former partner declared, flopping down beside her on one of the club’s semi-circular couches. Rey laughed aloud now, her smile genuine, as she looked at her best friend, Finn Storm.

Finn had been with the force only a little longer than Rey, but had shown her the ropes, watched her back, and given her the most sound advice of anyone she’d met at the precinct before or since.

“You’re not wrong,” Rey agreed, toasting Finn. He clinked his beer bottle against her tumbler, and they both sipped their drinks.

“How many of these stupid things have we been to?” Finn wondered aloud, absently peeling the label of his beer. “How many of our colleagues have we watched make fools of themselves?”

“Never enough,” Rey mused. “Another year, another party, another celebration. Better this than the alternative.” Her lips flattened into a line as she thought of the force’s more somber gatherings, of the Last Call variety.

Better to close down a club and hear that phrase any day of the week, than to hear it from dispatch on an end of watch call, as Rey had too many times before.

“Okay, peanut, that’s dark, even for you. Cheer up.” Finn elbowed her gently, his tone gentle, but she could feel him watching him from the corner of her eye. She sighed.

“Sorry,” she shouted over the music. “I just...have a weird feeling tonight. And this time of year is always hard for me.”

Finn’s hand was heavy on her shoulder as he patted her arm. “I know. I know, peanut.”

As Finn heaved himself off the couch and back into the fray, Rey allowed her eyes to drift around the club, straying from her gyrating group of friends. Though she could tell more than a few illegal substances had been ingested tonight, her time in Vice was long past, and Rey counted herself lucky that she could take the night off.

Still, she watched idly as Finn rejoined the dance floor, BB spun in circles, and Jess wandered toward a staircase near the front of the room. The young woman leaned heavily on the railing as she climbed the stairs, pausing when she encountered an obstacle.

Rey was more focused on Jess than said obstacle—that is, until his eyes whipped away from the young officer’s and connected with Rey’s.

Her body stilled, as a doe’s when it senses danger. Rey stared up at the man, who, though his body was canted toward Jess’s, stared right back at Rey. His dark eyes seemed to rake over her from head to toe, silently judging, wondering, _hungering_ , all at once.

Rey knew better than to back down from a challenge; with her gaze level on his, she placed her glass slowly down on the table in front of her, leaning back on the couch, allowing her jacket to fall open slowly, revealing a tanned strip of skin...and the dull gold of her badge.

Whatever she expected his response to be at the sight, the small smirk on his lips and the arch of his thick brow wasn’t it. Rey couldn’t help but let her eyes trace over his plush red mouth, to linger on his thick hair, to sweep over his broad shoulders, and land right back in the line of his dark gaze.

Jess chose that moment to stumble, giggling up at the man, who pulled his eyes from Rey’s to steady her friend. The young officer grinned up at the tall stranger, who pulled her up the steps and planted her firmly on the landing, a display of chivalry Rey frankly hadn’t been expecting but nonetheless found herself appreciating.

Just as she found herself appreciating the smile that spread slowly over his face as Jess babbled her thanks, his cheeks creasing and giving his countenance a warmth that had been missing just a moment ago as he smiled kindly down at her friend.

Rey found herself relaxing, waiting for the tall stranger to glance her way again, waiting for him to perhaps make his way down the stairs and toward her on those long legs, to perhaps ask her to dance.

A rumbling started in the club, a sort of shocked silence echoed quickly by gasps and shrieks, rising into screams and scrambling feet as three shots rang out in the densely packed club.

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

In an instant, everything disappeared—her fantasy, her sense of comfort, of ease—as those three shots rang out, cutting through the music and heat of the club just as easily as they cut through Officer Pava’s body, her slight form crumpling before falling lifelessly backward, the light extinguished from her being just as easily as it had illuminated her only moments before.


	2. but what's puzzlin' you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another quick CW for mention of death.

Benjamin had never enjoyed meddling in mortal affairs. The occasional machination was within his purview, certainly—but the everyday strifes and struggles of humans were not his to judge. It was only after one had shuffled off his mortal coil that Ben’s job forced their interaction.

Tonight, those worlds collided, and altogether too close for Ben’s comfort. The tipsy woman who’d been giggling her thanks up at him, swaying on her feet, had only just come to rest at the foot of the stairs upon which she’d just been standing. And now, instead of staring at the lush Detective and her tantalizing strip of skin, he looked down to see her crouched over the still form of the dead woman.

Ben swept his gaze across the club. Sky had emptied out considerably, the crowds driven away like horses at the sound of gunshots. Though a few odd patrons remained, gruesomely intrigued by the scene unfolding before them, he saw no one suspicious.

And Ben knew guilt when he saw it. He’d had an eternity to observe it, after all, from his perch on the throne of Hell.

Scowling, he turned to make his way down the steps and toward the body of the dead woman, perturbed in the extreme by his club having been sullied with such violence. His distaste was interrupted by the detective, though, who snapped her gaze up to his with an air of such impotent fury that it stopped him in his tracks.

“Who are you?” she yelled through the tears in her eyes, half-crouched at the foot of the stairs. “What have you done!?” The Detective’s question was part plea, part exclamation, hoarse and desperate.

Ben reached the women—one dead, and one so, _so_ alive—and looked down in barely-controlled fury at the prone form on the floor.

Such waste, humans were inclined toward; Ben had always found it downright baffling, the ease with which they could create and end lives.

“I think I should be asking you those questions, Detective,” he replied silkily, settling down into a crouch beside the distraught woman, whose hands were riddled red with blood.

“How did you know I was a detective?” Her voice was flat and businesslike now; she was all cop again, he observed.

“Well, you flashed me, didn’t you?” Ben said with a half-grin. “Your badge, that is.” He looked at it now, resting at her hip as she knelt beside him, slim and strong. He could see her brown hair more clearly now, twisted behind her into three buns, and the sharp line of her jaw.

“I did. I’m not some barfly, and neither is my friend.” She turned to fix him with a hazel stare. “We’re both cops, but Jess was a rookie. She doesn’t have any enemies.”

“Didn’t, you mean,” Ben corrected automatically. At the hurt that filled the Detective’s eyes, Ben reflected that this was perhaps one of those human quirks he was always missing—the dislike of being reminded about death. “You forgot _yet_ , too,” he added, perhaps unwisely.

Indeed, by the feral glint that came into the Detective’s eyes, Ben surmised he’d hit a nerve.

_Fascinating._

“You don’t know anything about my friend, and I don’t know anything about you. Which is a problem since you’re dangerously close to contaminating a crime scene.”

“Well, there are probably very few places in Sky that I _haven’t_ contaminated, seeing as it’s mine,” he said. “Ben Solo.”

“Detective Niima, LAPD,” she replied, almost tiredly. 

“And who was this?” Ben asked, gesturing to the dead woman.

“Officer Jessika Pava,” she replied, and as her eyes lingered on her colleague, Ben let his dwell on the Detective. She was tired of seeing murder, yes, but was determined to pursue justice, if the frown lines around her mouth and the hard line of her jaw were any indication. 

“Rey!”

The Detective’s head snapped up, and Ben followed her gaze to a dark-skinned man rushing toward them.

“Rey, are you okay?” the man asked, a bit more frantic than was necessary, in Ben’s opinion. “Were you hurt?” He skidded to a stop and knelt beside The Detective— _Rey,_ Ben filed away—wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. Even as she shrugged it off, he plowed onward. “Who’re you?” he demanded at Ben, and in the same breath, “who’s this clown?” in an undertone to Rey.

“Slow down, Finn,” the Detective replied. “I’m fine. This is Ben Solo, the club owner and a witness.” She sighed. “Mr. Solo, this is Detective Storm.”

“I cleared the perimeter and gathered any remaining witnesses I could find,” the man told Rey.

“Good. We’ll need to interview everyone we can, see if anyone saw anything. Solo, we’ll need to see security footage.”

“Of course,” he said, rising smoothly and pulling out his phone to order it up, the Detective still mumbling as he sent a message.

“If only there was a way to find out who was in this place tonight,” Rey was saying in defeat.

“Oh, there is,” Ben assured her.

Both detectives turned to face him.

“What do you mean?” Storm demanded.

“Everyone is carded on their way in, and after one too many nights like this, I started scanning IDs and recording them for a period of 72 hours.”

“That’s illegal!” burst out Detective Storm, even as Rey narrowed her eyes and said, “get me those names.”

* * *

In her ten years with the LAPD, Rey had seen plenty of death. She’d seen murder before: a sting gone sour, a colleague down in the line of duty, a gang war that boiled over. And on one memorable occasion, she’d pulled the trigger herself.

But tonight was the first killing she was surprised by—the first wrong-place, wrong-time death she’d been privy to. The first that made no sense to her analytical cop mind. Who would target a young police officer, fresh out of the academy, with a stable home and family?

Though she had barely known Jess Pava, Rey knew that regardless of their relationship, it was now her duty to get justice for the woman. She knew it as surely as the fact that she would have the rest of the force behind her in her mission.

Rey was thankful she was sober as she went through the motions of organizing her team. Finn frantically led the effort to interview the remaining clubgoers. BB sluggishly observed the crime scene techs, waiting for their findings to be transferred to her lab. 

And Rey watched grimly as the black-bagged stretcher bearing Jess’s body was wheeled out of the club and off to the morgue. The sight of the matte bag contrasted sharply with the glossy grand piano it passed, and Rey found her eyes drawn to the pianist seated there, his broad back to hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm trying to keep chapters short so I can post more frequently. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts in the comments!


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